At the Silver Jubilee celebrations of the Indian Oil pipeline Refinery in Panipat on July 13, 2023, the Union Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas, Rameshwar Teli, said that India is one of the fastest-growing economies of the world and that the petroleum and petrochemical sector of India has played a major pivotal role in this.
The Chief Minister of the state of Haryana, Manohar Lal Khattar, also graced the occasion.
He also said that the Indian Oil Refinery in the city of Panipat is going to set up a green hydrogen plant which has a capacity of 7000 tonnes, with an investment of Rs 60,000 crores. These mega projects would speed up the economic development not only in Haryana but across the entire India.
Adding further, he said whenever such complexes are set up, many opportunities related to development come up or arise in the surrounding areas. This also helps in providing large-scale employment opportunities.
According to a statement released by the Haryana Government, Teli announced that the refinery is going to increase its capacity, which would help in reducing the country’s import in terms of energy consumption, which will save foreign exchange.
The minister said he is sure that the way the people of Haryana have continuously contributed to the development of the Indian Oil Refinery, in the same way, they would contribute to making India a self-reliant country. Recently, India became the fifth-largest economy in the world, leaving countries such as the United Kingdom (UK).
The Chief Minister of Haryana, at the occasion, said that with the setting up of the Indian Oil Panipat Refinery and Petrochemical Complex in 1998, Haryana got a new identity on the world map in the refinery industry. At the time of inception, it had a refining capacity of 15 million metric tonnes.
The IOC has planned to increase the refinery capacity to 25 million tonnes in the coming years. While assuring all support and cooperation of the state government for this expansion, Khattar asserted the talks with the village panchayats of three villages, Pal Jatan, Khandwa and Aasan Khalan, around the refinery, and they offered to give about 350 acres for this purpose.
As a part of PM Narendra Modi’s vision and commitment to make India TB-free by 2025, the Panipat refinery has taken the initiative to distribute handheld X-ray machines in 22 districts of Haryana to make this campaign a success.
The chairman of the IOCL (Indian Oil Corporation Limited), Shrikant Madhav Vaidya, presented a machine to the Chief Minister. Khattar said that a green hydrogen plant with an annual capacity of 7000 metric tonnes is also being set up by the refinery at Panipat. In addition, the refinery has created an infrastructure capable of filling 1000 medical oxygen cylinders daily, he added.
The oil and gas sector is among the eight core industries in India and plays a major role in decision-making for all other sectors of the economy. Due to its rapid growth, the industry has had a lot of opportunities for investments from foreign players. Petroleum gas, propane, distilled crude oil, and kerosene are some of the major products manufactured for foreign trade.
India has witnessed spectacular growth in the refining sector over the years. From a deficit scenario in 2001, the country achieved self-sufficiency in Refining and today is a major exporter of Quality Petroleum Products.
Some examples of oil and gas giants include the ONGC (Oil and Natural Gas Corporation), Oil India Limited (OIL), IOCL (Indian Oil Corporation Limited), OVL (ONGC Videsh Limited) etc. India has a number of oil refineries and oilfields overseas, such as in Libya, to name a few, and a significant presence of the Indian Oil and Gas Sector units are stationed and found in West Asian nations.
